Following a series of high-profile withdrawals from the Canadian Masters, Lorenzo Musetti heads into this year’s tournament as the third seed.
The Italian world No.7 has enjoyed a breakthrough first half of this season, where he reached his first Masters final in Monte Carlo before making it through to the semi-finals of the French Open in what was his joint-best performance at a major. He also reached the last four at Wimbledon in 2024. Since January, he has claimed five wins over top-10 opposition, with two of those victories coming against Alex de Minaur. He has also beaten Stefanos Tsitsipas, Holger Rune, and Alexander Zverev. All of those victories were achieved on the clay.
However, more recently, the Tour has been a challenge for Musetti, who retired from his semi-final match against Carlos Alcaraz at Roland Garros due to an injury to his upper left leg. After spending a couple of weeks on the sidelines, the Italian returned to action at Wimbledon, where he suffered a shock first round loss to Nikoloz Basilashvili. More recently, he lost his opening match in Washington to Cameron Norrie.
“After Paris, I had an injury that stopped me for a while. So it was not easy to recover from that,” Musetti told reporters in Toronto.
“The grass season, I didn’t play many matches and in Washington it was a tough match. I probably didn’t play my best tennis.
“I think on this kind of surface, which is not my let’s say my natural habit, I have to try to get used to and try to have the right feelings.”
The 23-year-old is yet to go beyond the third round at both Grand Slam hardcourt events in Australia and America. Although he has enjoyed success on the surface in the past by winning a 250 event in Napoli in 2022, beating Matteo Berrettini in the final. More recently, he was a finalist at the Chengdu Open last September and made it to the fourth round of Indian Wells this year.
“I practiced for the first time here in Toronto and I had nice feedback from the practice,” he said of his current form.
“I’m happy to be here and really looking forward to starting this event.”
Musetti will be hoping to capitalise on the absence of Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic in Toronto, where he has no points to defend. He opted to skip the event 12 months ago due to the Summer Olympics.
“It was a tough decision but it was the right one,” he said of not playing in 2024.
“I came here (to Toronto) with a lot of motivation. Two years ago, I had good feelings and good memories from that time. So hopefully it’s going to be a great tournament.”
